Medscape

Medscape is recommended as a medical information and news website for physicians and other medical professionals. Users can also search the site's collection of 14,000+ informational articles on various drugs, diseases, laboratory tests, and procedures. General readers will likely encounter a difficult reading experience. However, each article provides patient handouts specific to that disease, medication, or procedure.

Scoring

Ease of Use

Accessing most of Medscape's health content requires users to sign up for a free account. Diseases and conditions are helpfully organized by medical specialty. Users can also browse content alphabetically. Because the website is focused on health news, finding specific information can sometimes be difficult. Thankfully the website features a powerful website with several different filters to help visitors locate relevant materials.

Visual Design

Medscape's visual design is plain but helps users navigate the site's large collection of content. Every article includes a stock-level image to enhance reader interest, but for the most part the website is not visually engaging. In fact, there's a good deal of clutter and annoying advertisements that make it hard to navigate at times.

Quality

Medscape is a doctor-focused website providing comprehensive and high quality health news on virtually all diseases/conditions and drugs. The site publishes numerous articles daily, most of which are based on new scientific studies as they're published. Studies come from respected publications in the field and appear to be interpreted well.

Credibility

News articles are written by mix of health professionals and lay people. Detailed articles about diseases, procedures, testing, and drug information are written by licensed medical professionals. Authors and editors are identified and have credentials appropriate to the topic. Site employs an extensive editorial board of medical experts. Articles show date of last update, though drug information does not.

Pros

Free account that enables access to the latest news and perspectives on a variety of major medical topics like cardiology, family medicine, and pediatrics

“Media galleries” add multimedia flare to otherwise dry text articles

Deep library of information on diseases, procedures, testing, and drugs